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French semiconductor maker Soitec is moving forward with plans for a solar manufacturing plant within San Diego city limits, putting the region at the forefront for deployment of a promising and relatively new photovoltaic technology.

The factory in Rancho Bernardo will produce concentrated photovoltaic modules that use optical lenses to focus sunlight onto tiny solar cells measuring one-tenth of an inch. Researchers say the technology, pioneered on space missions, is poised for a commercial breakthrough next year on utility-scale electricity generating projects and may soon compete broadly with traditional silicon solar panels, even as panel prices plummet.

Soitec foresees employing 450 full-time workers when its plant opens in October. The production capacity will be equivalent to 200 megawatts of generation capacity, enough to power about 80,000 local residences.

That’s the largest plant for concentrated photovoltaics, or CPV, announced anywhere to date, said Sarah Kurtz, a principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. An Amonix CPV plant in North Las Vegas produces about 100 megawatts of equipment a year.

Soitec raised $200 million through a stock offering to finance the plant, dedicating $30 million to the purchase of land and facilities. But the venture is effectively underwritten by electricity ratepayers across San Diego and southern Orange County, where San Diego Gas & Electric has signed power purchase agreements for six solar farms that rely on Soitec’s trademark Concentrix technology.

The terms of those 25-year agreements will not be made public until at least 2017 under state regulations intended to ensure competition and reasonable costs.

The power will count toward state requirements for utilities and other retailers to procure one-third of their electricity from renewable energy generation sources, such as wind turbines, geothermal plants, small-scale hydropower and solar installations.

California’s aggressive goals for renewable energy played an important role in Soitec’s decision to locate near the state’s southern deserts, where it could substantially reduce delivery costs to future utility projects, said Clark Crawford, ﻿vice president for sales and business development for Soitec’s U.S. operations, based in La Jolla.

California’s property-tax exclusion for solar energy systems and federal tax incentives also benefit Soitec in its role as a developer on five of the solar-generating facilities, in Boulevard and Borrego Springs, in which power will be sold to SDG&E. Soitec was not lured to San Diego by local tax breaks or incentives.

Local business leaders watched with some dismay last year as Spanish panel assembler Siliken Solar moved its 130-employee manufacturing center in Otay Mesa to Tijuana across the Mexican border, primarily to reduce labor costs.

Soitec found that the workforce in Rancho Bernardo was a good match for a highly automated factory — with an annual payroll of $22 million — that requires many computer engineers and technicians, Crawford said. Soitec, which hired consultant Deloitte to help select its manufacturing site, also saw benefits in joining a growing cluster of companies working to get energy from the sun and wind — including NRG, AES and Enel Group.